Comments

NBA Picks

NBA Pick: NBA Playoff Play of the Day Friday

Every day during the NBA Playoffs, LT Profits Sports seeks that one single playoff play that has the best chance of cashing. Here is their Playoff Play of the Day Friday.

The defending NBA Champions could close out their Eastern Conference Final series Friday night and advance to their fourth straight NBA Finals, and we look for that to happen in emphatic fashion when the top seeded Indiana Pacers (66-34, 26-23 away) pay a visit to those Miami Heat (65-31, 39-9 home) for Game 6 from American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL at 8:35 ET in a game televised nationally on ESPN with the Heat leading the series 3-2

The point spread at Pinnacle Sports has Miami as a decided home favorite for this contest with the current line at -7½ with odds of -106.

And yet, with the game seemingly gift-wrapped for the Pacers, Indiana did its best to choke the game away and probably would have been eliminated already if Chris Bosh had hit a potential series-ending corner three-pointer with three seconds left. So how did the Pacers get themselves in that predicament when a much safer win was theirs for the taking?

Besides the customary “playing not to lose” after building an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter, Indiana committed 17 turnovers and was dreadful from the foul line at 13-for-22, 59.1 percent. That included key misses by Paul George and David West in the final 30 seconds that would have had the Pacers leading by four points instead of just two before Miami’s final possessions when, luckily for Indiana, Bosh’s three-pointer was off target.

That is just further evidence of the fragile psyche of this Indiana team, which was evident throughout the second half of the season and also in bad home blowout losses over the first two series of these playoffs vs. much lesser teams than Miami.

Now Indiana may have some fight early on in this game, much like when it opened a 15-point lead in the first half of Game 3, but the Heat proved their superiority over the second half of both home games and we do not expect the Pacers to put up much resistance in the latter stages of this contest either.

Granted this point spread is one point higher than it was in Game 3 and Game 4, but we do not think it will matter as we are looking for an easy double-digit Miami win in Game 6 at home to wrap up the Eastern Finals on Friday.